Chapter 15 #2
There was a different purpose to their working in the garden today. No longer were they blindly clearing the area in the hope of finding something but instead, systematically uncovering and discovering what lay beneath the years of neglect.
The drawings of the garden had revealed that a low wall bordered a pathway running right up the middle of the garden.
It was bisected in the centre by another at right angles, thereby dividing the garden into the traditional four quadrants of which the Victorians were so fond. And it was here that they made a start.
It was slow work. The brambles had taken every opportunity they could over the years and huge clumps of them had grown up, along with patches of nettles and grass so wiry it was virtually impossible to remove.
And it took almost an hour to reduce a small area of vegetation to ground level.
It was only when Leo thrust a spade into the ground to try and split a root that they heard the dull clank of metal hitting something equally hard.
With a grin at each other, they both dropped to their knees, pulling at the stubborn mess as they tried to find purchase on the slippery stems. Yanking with both arms, Gemma almost toppled backward as a clump finally came free, but with it came their reward: the gleam of something paler. They had found the edge of the path.
With something to follow, progress seemed to speed up as they concentrated on revealing the stone flags which gave the garden its symmetry and defining features.
Once they had that, they would be able to work out where the flowerbeds had been, the benches, the fountain, the intricate box hedging and the arbour, hiding away with its once rose-scented trellises.
All of that seemed an age away as yet, but the promise of it was there, and that was all the motivation they needed.
A pale afternoon sun had found a gap in the thin cloud, highlighting the blue of a watercolour sky, and even though the air was still cool, Gemma was warm, her breath coming in pants.
Her muscles were now more used to working hard and she was enjoying the feeling of a body growing in strength, its capabilities waking and stretching just as if it had been asleep.
She’d been dormant, she realised, for such a long time, just like the plants and the life around her, and yet it hadn’t always been that way.
She used to relish being outside. Having the wind whip her hair around, feeling it burnish her cheeks, turning her eyes to bright sparkles and her skin rosy.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Leo, pulling at a clump of stubborn grass. ‘Maybe we should keep what we spoke about last night to ourselves. I’m not sure it’s something Willow and Rowan really need to know.’
Gemma straightened. ‘Oh…?’
‘The theft of things which they depend upon was bad enough, but if the rest of the damage was done with malicious intent, that’s something different.’
‘Agreed. But who would do such a thing?’
‘I have no idea. Aside from Vicky in the tearoom, they don’t know that many people.’
‘Yes, Rowan said. A few outspoken villagers when they bought the place rather put them off seeking out the local community, but I didn’t think it was anything serious.’
‘Me neither. Rowan tried to brush it off when I asked him about it. He’s one of the most reasonable people I know, but maybe there was more to it than he was letting on.’
Gemma brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. ‘So you don’t know any details?’
Leo shook his head. ‘Only that I think someone else wanted the land for development.’
Gemma pulled a face. ‘Ugh… the usual story. Someone looking to make a fast profit by building houses no one needs.’
Leo dropped his gaze, the slight shrug in his shoulders spelling out his desire to say something coupled with a reticence to do so. Usually because it was something he knew she wouldn’t like. It used to infuriate her.
‘What?’ she said, shoving the tines of the fork she was holding into the ground.
He gave a slight smile, without looking up.
‘Something amusing you?’
He rubbed at his chin. ‘Not really… but it’s nice to know that you’ve escaped the advertising industry with your morals intact. It’s not exactly an industry renowned for its conservative viewpoint where making money is concerned.’
She stared at him. ‘Is your opinion of me really that low?’
‘No, I…’ A look of panic crossed his face. ‘I think what I said was exactly the opposite.’
‘What you said and what you think are two different things. You never wanted me to work at Mayfield Dawson in the first place. I seem to remember you making that very clear… But you know as well as I do that I only took the job with them because we needed the money.’
‘Yeah, and then stayed with them for years.’
‘Because we still needed the money. And why was that, Leo? I never planned to have a career in advertising. I didn’t even know what a creative director was until I became one.
I got lucky with the agency, I know that – right place, right time – but I was also damned good at my job. And don’t you dare blame me for that.’
Leo held her look. ‘I never blamed you. Not once, but do you know what did always used to bug me?’
‘Probably… but I suspect you’re going to tell me anyway.’
‘What bugged me was that your job was all about ideas. About taking a concept and running with it, and yet you never once paid any attention to mine.’
‘There were so many of them it was hard to keep up.’
‘Because I needed to work things out,’ he protested.
‘But they were all leading in the same direction. I knew what I wanted the end product to be, but I also needed to work out the steps to get me there, and that was what I struggled with. I didn’t have a brain like yours that could solve problems and see solutions. I needed your help, not your scorn.’
‘I tried, Leo. God help me, I tried. But you wouldn’t talk about any of it.
You just used to sulk when you’d had a bad day.
The slightest little setback would send you into a spiral you took weeks to come out of.
Do you have any idea how exhausting that was?
And I did everything I could to bolster you up, encouraging you, telling you to believe in yourself, but it never got any better.
I used to be proud to have a husband who had ideals like you did.
Who didn’t want to settle for the world the way it was.
Who had dreams of how it could be better.
But having thoughts like that isn’t enough.
You have to have the determination to see those thoughts through and, in the end, I realised that I couldn’t make you believe in yourself, and that if you didn’t, no one else would either.
And that’s exactly what did happen. You gave up. ’
‘I needed help. I wanted help. I didn’t want to do it on my own. I wanted someone with me, working alongside me, someone with whom I could share the dream, who believed in it just as much as I did. I wanted you, Gemma.’
‘But you couldn’t have me, Leo, because I was busy making the money we needed to keep ourselves afloat. Someone had to.’
Leo looked away. It was an old argument, one they’d had over and over, but Gemma could still see how hard her words hit home, even after all these years. Their situations might have changed but all the old hurts were still there.
‘I know, I let you down, but Bernie—’
Gemma rounded on him, a sudden flare of anger rising up from the store which she still tended in the quiet, dark recesses of her mind. ‘Don’t you dare bring my dad into this. He had nothing to do with our situation.’
‘No?’ Leo stared at her. ‘How can you even say that? He had everything to do with it, not least because he was the only one – despite your platitudes – who really did believe in what I was doing. He was the only one I could ever talk to about any of it, and that’s where the real problem lay, Gemma.
You hated that, didn’t you? The fact that he took my side, always telling you to try to see the situation from my point of view.
One of these days you might even admit to that, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
All I know is that it made me so much easier to blame for what happened. ’
Gemma opened her mouth to retaliate but before she could do so, Leo turned on his heel and stalked off across the grass, leaving her standing in the mess they had created.
It wasn’t a garden full of hope and ambition for the future; it was the long-forgotten ruin of what had once existed, now sad and neglected.
The day had been torn in two and nothing would put it back together again.